you should gogh!
I had to, I’m sorry.
As an artist, getting a chance to see the works of one of the greats in a new medium is a no-brainer. I’d been hearing whisperings about the Van Gogh Immersive Experience for a little while. I finally saw a segment about it on the national news, and knew I had to gogh (ah, see I did it again, last time I promise). Turns out, it was coming to Dallas…
After making some slight, nonchalant, mentions of it to my husband, he ended up surprising me with tickets for late September.
The night was perfect, the summer heat was slowly transitioning to a nice, cool breeze in the air, and the stroll through the streets of dallas was surprisingly pleasant.
The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit is housed at the Lighthouse Dallas, this towering art deco building that is truly in the heart of downtown. What used to be a former Masonic Temple, has been permanently transformed into an immersive museum (meaning, the Van Gogh experience won’t be the last of its kind in Dallas).
The exhibit does a wonderful job of getting you excited before even stepping foot inside. Large bouquets of sunflowers, a nod to Van Gogh’s still life series “Sunflowers”, welcome you as you ascend the staircase to the entrance. After a quick scan of your ticket, and an assurance of a face mask, you are ushered inside for your magical night.
After entering, you are instructed to climb a flight of stairs where you are greeted with a bar, if you choose to indulge in an adult beverage (you are asked to keep your face masks on in the exhibit when you are not drinking). On this same landing is a towering portrait of Vincent himself, and the perfect opportunity for a date night selfie.
If you purchase a VIP ticket (more on the differences below), you pick up your floor pillow and are guided inside. One thing I will mention here, there are multiple rooms that you are free to walk through at your leisure. We were a little confused at first, and sat in the first, very overcrowded room, thinking we had to do each room separately for views of different artworks, but we quickly realized that was not the case. Each room just gives you a completely difference experience of the art. The first room is rather small, more intimate if you will, while the second room is very large with a second floor where you can look out over the floor below, getting the best views, in my opinion. The upstairs also gives you the best picture-taking opportunity, as it was rather empty. The third room, also on the small side, includes large vertical mirrors, which gives a completely different view of the works altogether.
The exhibit itself displays more than 500,000 feet of projections that completely envelope you as soon as you enter. After realizing that we could move freely throughout the building, we took moments in each room to just sit and take it all in. Maybe it was the artist in me, or the perfectly orchestrated music that went along with the exhibit, but I definitely found myself completely moved, with eyes full of tears of joy.
Once we had finished taking it all in, and sipped the last drops of our beverages, we exited and made our way back downstairs. Here we traded in our floor pillows and received our free poster, another perk of the VIP ticket. We had our picture taken in front of the namesake “Vincent” sign, and made our way into the gift shop.
To me, the whole experience was magical. I felt like a little kid, and walked away with such a sense of wonder and excitement. I’m sure a lot of that can be credited to the fact that I am an artist, and grew up reading and studying the works of Van Gogh. But for anyone who loves museums and has even an inkling of appreication for art, I highly recommend viewing it in this new immersive way.
The Van Gogh experience has already been extended twice, and is currently planning on staying put until January 3rd, 2022. There are also plans to add a full service bar and cafe to the building, so you can dine and experience future exhibits at the same time. I am so excited to see what new immersive exhibits come, because I.am.here.for.it.
Check out my facts to know, download their app, and take a peek at my video of the Van Gogh Immersive Experience below.
